#15 Speed Dating Reflections
What did you learn from the speed dating session that is helping you to further refine your ideas?
This week, our team engaged in the Speed Dating exercise during class time.
Collectively, we presented our ideas to 16 fellow students and are in the process of digesting the feedback in order to refine our final project.
We began each presentation by establishing the framing for our idea — first, by explaining the Who/What/When/Where/Why context:
We clarified that all of our financial literacy learning experiences are based upon the idea of establishing a Life Finances office at CMU, which would function as a financial educational and advocacy arm of Student Affairs. We then presented our Learning Theory Framework which combines the 4MAT approach with nested goals, mapping four critical financial concepts over the four year undergraduate experience:
We explained that we would be seeking feedback on facets of a Financial Literacy Escape Room concept, while confirming that there are several other learning experiences that are part of our larger vision, but we will not be focusing on them for the final project:
After reviewing various aspects of our escape room concept…
…we have settled on some key takeaways from the speed dating exercise.
Key Takeaway #1: Go Deep
Across our fellow students, the vast majority preferred that we create escape rooms that focus on just one of the following four concepts, instead of combining all four into one experience:
This idea was reinforced multiple times, as fellow students mentioned that they have a preference to spend more time on a specific topic, and allow the knowledge and skills surrounding that topic the time they need to be internalized.
This was an important finding for us, since we were split regarding how wide or deep the topics contained in the escape room should be.
Key Takeaway #2: Incorporate Multiple Room-Design Themes
Another facet of the escape room that we were seeking feedback on was whether it should be designed as puzzle-centric vs. more of an organic discovery of organization from mess. We presented two distinct concepts for review (pictured above). Across all of our conversations, the students were almost equally split in their preference, meaning we couldn’t settle on a clear winner. However, several of our conversations revealed that students liked elements in both rooms and wished that both could be incorporated.
Taking this feedback, along with the notion that we should have one room per concept, means that we will likely create an escape room experience that employs both finance-specific puzzles along with the organization-from-mess experience.
Key Takeaway #3: Keep The Financial Topics
Almost universally, the students we spoke with confirmed that the four financial topics we outlined are comprehensive in terms of areas for receiving educational experiences. Some students expressed more interest in one topic over another, but no one suggested topics outside of our scope.
As such, we will stick with the topics of budgeting, credit, debt, and investment.
Key Takeaway #4: Permanent > Temporary
While we did not have the opportunity to ask every student if they believed our escape room should be professional built as a permanent installation at CMU vs. a student-constructed temporary installation at Carnival — the consensus among those we did speak to was: go permanent.
The feedback we received is that for the learning experience to be effective, it should be professional, engaging, immersive, and truly worthwhile. The experience itself should amplify any knowledge or skills being developed, instead of detract from it by being too amateur.
As such, we will promote the idea of a permanent installation in the Life Finances offices, ideally designed by a master Escape Room design team — with yearly rotations for different topics.
These are the primary takeaways from the Speed Dating experience. We’ll continue to review the feedback and begin to make progress on building out our final project.
